Re: Recommendations for SSDs in production?

Vertex 3 and ocz in general has a very bad reputation in the "enthusiast scene". Sudden
issues, hard locks, data loss and so on. Just go and look in the OCZ
forums. I would not dare by on Vertex 3 for my desktop...have 2 Intel ones.

I have no idea what you do but just the fact that you bought ssds to
improve performance means it's rather high load and hence important.
Using a consumer drive for that IMHO is not the best idea. I know a lot
about ssds but just in consumer space. Intel has a good reputation in
terms of reliability but they are not the fastest. I guess go Intel
route or some other crazy expensive enterprise stuff.

Note that consumers drives can lead to data loss in case of power
failure (data in cache, no capacitors that would give enough power to
flush to nand).

For database I assume random read and writes are by way the most
important thing and any recent ssd is orders of magnitude faster in that
are compared to HDD even the "slow" Intel drives.

Regards,

Thomas

> Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 12:18:10 -0500
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Recommendations for SSDs in production?
> From: mmoncure(at)gmail(dot)com
> To: lists(at)benjamindsmith(dot)com
> CC: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
>
> On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Benjamin Smith
> <lists(at)benjamindsmith(dot)com> wrote:
> > Well,
> >
> > After reading several glowing reviews of the new OCZ Vertex3 SSD last spring,
> > we did some performance testing in dev on RHEL6. (CentOS)
> >
> > The results were nothing short of staggering. Complex query results returned
> > in 1/10th the time as a pessimistic measurement. System loads dropped from 2+
> > to 0.1 or less.
> >
> > Wow.
> >
> > So after months of using this SSD without any issues at all, we tentatively
> > rolled this out to production, and had blissful, sweet beauty until about 2
> > weeks ago, now we are running into sudden death scenarios. We have excellent
> > backup system, so the damage is reduced to roadbumps, but are looking for a
> > longer term solution that doesn't compromise performance too much.
> >
> > The config is super-basic, basically no tuning at all was done:
> >
> > # fdisk /dev/NNN;
> > mke2fs -j $partn;
> > mount $partn /var/lib/pgsql;
> > rsync -vaz /var/lib/pgsql.old /var/lib/pgsql;
> > service postgresql start;
> >
> > I don't mind spending some money. Can anybody comment on a recommended drive
> > in real world use?
> >
> > After some review I found:
> >
> > 1) Micron P300 SSD: claims excellent numbers, can't find them for sale
> > anywhere.
> >
> > 2) Intel X25E - good reputation, significantly slower than the Vertex3. We're
> > buying some to reduce downtime.
> >
> > 3) OCZ "Enterprise" - reviews are mixed.
> >
> > 4) Kingston "Enterprise" drives appear to be identical to consumer drives with
> > a different box.
> >
> > 5) STEC drives are astronomically expensive. (EG: "You're kidding, right?")
> >
> > 6) Corsair consumer drives getting excellent reviews, Aberdeen Inc recommended
> > in use with RAID 1.
> >
> > 7) Seagate Pulsar drives, XT.2 drives are expensive SLC but can't find a
> > vendor, Pulsar .2 drives are more available but having trouble finding reviews
> > other than rehashed press releases.
> >
> > Thanks!
>
> The X25-E is now essentially being replaced by the 710. I would look there.
>
> merlin
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general